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“Mystic readers of the stars,
In Land of Sleeping’s language versed,
Consult the tales, those stories –old.
And tell us, is the maiden sold?”


“Climb the tower, the fire pieces,
Traverse the heavens, assign the path,
Until the maze of tomes thus ceases…
And mystery lost to art of math.”

This is a re-write of two verses from two different pages of the Tales of Miletus done in such a way as to capture a modern interpretation of the meaning being implied in the ancient version.

The Tower of Babel is translated in Sumerian as the, "tower," of the, "falling fires." It literally means the stars in a cylinder(tower) of the circular nature of the heavens.

Before man invented chalkboards he had sand but long before writing he had a nightly revolving teaching tool called the stars. Each star constellation contains modern letters. One contains half the alphabet and happens to visible to most of the planet year round.
K Balachandran Apr 2018
kind, caressing breeze,
its cadence reminds mother;
one with nature now!
Mia Lee Mar 2017
I like people from the south who talk slow like
honey pouring out of a teddy bear and into a glass
of tea like your last year of high school slow  
I like listening to things men say to women
outside of bars on Friday nights like yeah  
I’m really into meditation I like hearing
two babies talk to each other learning
how to make sounds into words I like to
lay on the couch and hear people drive
by on their way home to their couches

I like hearing I love you fall out
of someone’s mouth when they didn’t  
really mean it to I like hearing you say it
too I like to hear your voice change depending
on the time of day I like to hear the
way you say my name
Sally A Bayan Apr 2016
(10 w x 6)

I'm losing hold,
reflexes...relaxed,
...in a cradle,
..........swayed....by---
O
strong summer-y wind
................pushing
........pulling.....
......c a d e n c e... is
..........h y p n o t i z i n g...
.............playing music,
O
a sleepy tune
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~lulling the mind
~ ~ ~ and the eyes ~ ~ ~
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ while
O
~ ~ ~birds flitting about
~ ~ ~ ~dull the senses, and
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ quieten the soul...
O
i cannot...
i don't want
to ~ ~ fight ~  ~ it
~ ~ any ~ ~ longer
O
~ ~ to the gentle afternoon breeze
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ blowing ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
~ ~  i finally ~ ~ ~ ~ willingly
~ ~ ~ succumb ~ ~ ~
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
O


Sally

Copyright January 26, 2016
Rosalia Rosario A. Bayan
*** one windy, sleepy afternoon before taking a nap***
Brent Kincaid Mar 2016
I poeticize, proselytize
Punctuate and pontificate.
I write couplets and rhymes
And I really do it all the time.
I exacerbate and exaggerate
With no desire to intimidate.
I make similes and metaphors
Indoors and even out of doors.

There’s cussing and discussion
And sharp literary impressions
Through diversions, conversions
Allusions as well as conclusions.
And with luck, no delusions.
Just syllabically deft fusions
Of some deferential references
With a deft touch of reverence.

I rhyme thyme with fresh lime
And cardamom with cinnamon.
Sweetbreads and shortbreads.
Chicken bones and licking scones.
Rhyming pumpkins with dumplings
And matching up filets with filberts
Just as cocoa goes well with Kona.
Marmalade can be a good marinade.

I rhyme chrome wheels and automobiles,
Freeway off-ramps and Tiffany lamps.
Cellophane and vintage airplanes.
Flapper vamps and streetwalking tramps.
Also Cinderella coaches and cockroaches,
Nothing is unfair game to a busy poet.
As well as RCA Victors and boa constrictors.
Since I’m a poet, everyone should know it.
Finding a home in the cadence of one another's poems,
in the unspoken vastness of space between us,
is another kind of knowing,
found in these seasons
of our hearts, of our minds,
of our varied lives.
And so we keep writing, for those we love.
Yes, these words first appeared as a stanza in a longer poem:
'Virtual Reality, Then And Now'
©Elisa Maria Argiro
K Balachandran Dec 2015
There in the air, it hung, muted yet palpable,
like the  inebriating scent of new rain on earth
with this signal morning alluded something,
as if challenging anyone there to swiftly respond.

Gazing at the far away mountains, waking up,
pulling away slowly the blanket of darkness
a purple sun above making a symphony of colors
she is caught in the waves of the mood, it's cadence
captures the spirit in a poem; it blooms on it's own.

Zestfully she reads it in her resounding voice,as if
to the chickens clucking around in the cluttered barn
there wasn't any audience other than the birds and the cattle;
a sudden change the chickens,strange, till the moment before
they were looking for a worm or two in the black earth.

As if forgotten all other things the chicken stood
their head held high, beaks open as if to peck
in an attentive posture, they stood listening to her,
the moment they got the tune right,started reciting it.

The cows in the shed  turned to the direction of her voice,
as if it's a song, and it's for them she was singing .
A Mink Nov 2015
I built my own cage,
                      I’m the designer of
                                     my own prison

I twisted the metal till my hands bled
working every wire into a bar
I fastened every bolt and every *****
meticulously trapping myself there

I marked you as my salvation
and the truth is you were only a
                           figment of my imagination
I controlled this place
you were not my executioner
     and I’m free to leave
              so free

but i can’t

if you asked me to stay
I would be dammed to say no

one cadence
          one word
              one syllable
    stay.

thats all the effort you’d ever have to put in
tell me that magic phrase
Ill lock this door behind me
               forever.
K Balachandran Sep 2015
This precisely is the secret hour, that brings to an end
of the long wait of patient bats, now let them ecstatically mate,
mind, wakes up from stupor,in creative instinct,becomes a ******,
though peering in to own hidden shadows, from a pantomime past.
Silence of many shades reign in the mansion of magic beyond space,
along the labyrinthine inner corridor, lighted seldom or even never.

The dark nimbus clouds above, purge, thunder roars,victorious,
outside the cave rain in torrents lashes, winds whistle like possessed,
heart fills with an urge urgent,words fumble to express with verve,
blind bats, hanging upside down, wake all at once, shaking wings,
they arise creating a cacophony,then the transformation is quick,
what results is a frenzied ****** fight for colored words to mate.

The pairs suited most, in the crowded cave , intuitively selected,
commandeered, brought together, merged perfectly, without effort,
blending with the rare beauty of light filtering in, striking images
of different hues appear on the screen, moving pictures of creation.

Everything is still here except,a fecund sense, awareness in fire,
thoughts are in a churn, turn towards the starlit firmament,
and fertile red earth doused in the scent new rain roused,
blue water expanses, rippling moves as waves after waves
all finally settle, mind's creative pool now, is a placid reservoir.

Astonished he is, by the immortality of words, that acquire
an escape velocity to project, shoot up through the clouds,
it's payload, is carried by a  fuel, alchemy created propellant,
that ensures poetic transcendence,the fused golden words live long.

The creative moments, are pure  wonder, when within the folds
of primordial sound,he waves silk blending it with golden threads,
The poet becomes the word first and the word speaks through  him,
poem is a canal perennial,for the flow of desire, hope and pain concealed deep,all projected by the  mind continuum that never sleeps.
Ever did attempt, to try and  explain how poetic stirrings, begin and ooze, becomes trickle , becomes a flow, gushes out..
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